Wendy's First Four Letters

Hi everybody,

My first alphabet is "Black and White and a touch of ...RED". I did a short class with Bev Allen several months ago on various types of versals. The ones I have chosen to do are related to Zentangles in that they are essentially filled with repetitive doodles. The is essentially "living room art"--pencil, eraser, black and red monoline pens.. I didn't put a border on my first letter, but felt the "B" needed one and then used one on the others. I will have to see whether I want to redo "A" with a border, or use a mix of borders and no borders.

Wendy in Burnaby, B .C., Canada

Gabby's first letters...

Fellow Calligraphers! I was inspired to join the group when I saw some lovely creative work being prsented. I thought I would like to add my name and work to the list. here are the first 5 of the letters. I thought I would just doodle as I sat waatching TV . I used black paper and a white hybrid gel pen. I have added a ladybird to the letters as I was in the garden and found a lot of them on my flowers . They are so cute in real life. you might like to search for them on the letters as I plan to hide them in the doodles. Gabby

Elaine's beginnings

I am really looking forward to this exciting challenge again, thanks Fiona. I can hardly believe the first month is over already!

For my ‘black and white and a touch of….’ alphabet I wanted the 7cm squares to be transparent. I first worked on tracing paper, but it didn’t give me the transparency that I wanted, so I then tried ‘Mylar’ (a strong polyester film) which was perfect. For the freely written capitals I used one of my favourite tools, a double ruling pen, and FW non-clogging waterproof drawing ink. I was quite surprised to see that Mylar is mentioned as one of the surfaces that the ink can be used on. I don’t have the control I would have on paper because of the slippery surface, but I am enjoying the challenge. I have made the white dots with a fine round-tipped ‘Uni POSCA’ pen which is also waterproof and does not rub off the film..

For the ‘touch of..’ I am tying a coloured thread to one corner, gradating the colours as the alphabet progresses. I plan to put all the squares on a spike, reminiscent of the way we used to save receipts, etc . The hole for the spike will be on the opposite corner from the thread and I will put a bead or something similar on the spike between each square, providing a space between each one so that the letters are not obscured by each other. I imagine the letters spiralling around the spike and hopefully this will work out.

Judith's first letters...

The past -
the present -
the future -

The Sanskrit letters and words represent the past, the large letters in the centre are the present and the future? perhaps the abbreviated electronic texting.

Judith Kilburn

Heather's Art Deco Fantasy

This time I'm being clever and assembling as I go. Art Deco Letters which will ultimately be a bound star book. The letters are cut through the white paper and stuck onto the black "pages" of the book with "hot mama red" ink for a touch of........(glamour a la Hollywood perhaps). I'm having fun with these letters and looking forward to the exhibition of everyone's work...it should be stunning.
Heather.

Helen's first few

Am trying to relax my style from being so precise, so these are basically doodles. Have only a vague idea of my finished piece at present as I am hoping it will take on a life of its own and grow.

Till next time
Helen Irving

Sooo.....

Hi All,

I'm new to this and have gotten myself into a bit of a pickle.

I'm in love with all the letters posted so far! Which makes it even harder to admit this...

I don't have my letters done.

Here's the story - I was super excited to try a new technique for the "Black, white and a touch of something" alphabet - specifically- suminagashi. It seemed perfect, something I've been wanting to try for ages, it was 'supposed to be simple' (famous last words) and I have seen some beautiful black and white sheets with the occassional band of red...

So a month, four books on marbling, and four suminagashi sessions in and I have yet to figure out how to get a sheet that is much more than a few grey swirls. I've tried different inks, different surfactants, different temperatures of water...no joy.

The picture above shows one of my sessions, with test sheets laid out drying and the other pic is one of the best sheets I've pulled so far.

So, while I actually like the grey swirls they really aren't what I had envisioned, and I don't think really qualify as "black". Several days ago I decided I needed to move onto some other approach but am struggling to decide on a direction. I had thought my second alphabet would be a series of illuminated capitols but I may have to scramble/research and start those now.

I will catch up!

Lee

A-B-C-D from Mieke.

My first 4 for this year.

A bit of a challenge which is good!

I made photo's and photo shopped the letters on top,

printed them on muslin.

Then used the sewing machine and some gold paint to enhance the piece.

So far so good and still thinking how I will put them together.



black, white and a touch of ...

So far, so good! I'm on track.

This is my black, white and a touch of ... alphabet.

Another layered work, using the ruling pen alphabet I did in 2010 in my first little book. I think it makes a good balance for the geometric shapes.

The bottom layer is a block of black lower case 'a's, 'b's, 'c's, etc in Courier font, printed by inkjet on Canson paper.

In between this and the ruling pen letter (scanned and printed as a tint of black on tracing paper) there is a geometric shape resembling a A, B C etc. This is my touch of colour - a rich brown.

I like the way the ruling pen letters look like shadows, and the freedom of the ruling pen letters offsets the formality of the typeset letters.

These are glued together flat, and will be put in a small box when finished.

Looking forward to seeing all the work again this year. It is such fun opening the blog every few days to new work!
Keep it up everyone,
Meg

Lau's letters, a, b, c, i

First of all, I want to tell you... how splendid are your letters!
I am just a little bit shameful to post mines, just after the magnificent Julie's florishes....
My letters are simpler.
Black & white and a touch of... découpage!

Cut in white paper, I will probably put it all together in a black concertina :